Saint Nicholas is our guy: Clarissa Moll interviews Ned Bustard, “There’s a story of Nicholas battling Artemis, the goddess of the city in which he served as bishop. He prayed against the goddess, and her statue fell over, kind of like Dagon in 1 Samuel 5. How much of these stories are true? We don’t know, but we do know that he really did exist and has this reputation for being generous.”
Mama, you don’t have to save Christmas: Staci Eastin says, “The default mode when we feel stressed as moms seems to be “do more and try harder.” The Christmas season, with all the extra events on our calendars, seems to bring that out in us even more. So while we are remembering the Savior in the manger, we need to throw ourselves at the feet of the Savior at the cross.”
My top ten theology stories of 2025: Collin Hansen’s report concludes, “Can Kirk’s successors mark out a third way between institutionally dominant liberalism and lucrative online revanchism?”
The weakness of God: T.M. Suffield says, “The Bible tells us of a God who has ultimate strength, the unmoved mover, the God who is pure act and can do whatever he wants. So far so ubermench. And then the story takes the strangest turn. God gives up strength for weakness. He descends. God comes down.”
America has spoken: these are the most annoying Christmas songs: I agree with #1, but #8 and 10 have no business being on this list! I would have “Last Christmas,” “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” and “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” near the top of the list. How about you?

Photo by Liviu Florescu on Unsplash